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Thursday, October 2, 2008

University Degrees

"'More will mean worse,' wrote an angry Kinglsey Amis in 1961, contemplating plans to expand university education. His prediction has been tested past anything he could have imagined, as that era's new universities were joined by the ex-polytechnics in the 1990s, and the proportion of youngsters who go on to university rose from less than 10% to almost 40% now. ... Similar rumblings have continued since Amis's jeremiad. With less government money (in real terms) per student than in his day, universities have to pack them in and keep them to balance the books. ... In June a barnstorming lecture by Geoffrey Alderman, of Buckingham University gained wide attention with its claims of impotent external examiners, widespread unpunished plagarism and a 'grotesque bidding game' in which universities dished out good grades in order to claw their way up league tables. ... So worried is the committee that it is considering an inquiry into standards. Some think it should have turned a blind eye: 'We have been told that simply by looking at this question we are bringing this country's universities into disrepute,' says Phil Willis, its chairman. ... A system predicated on achievement, not potential, is under further pressure from a government that wants universities to admit more children from state schools, many of which offer a sketchy academic education. ... Cambridge is considering a foundation year for students who show potential but are ill prepared. ... Robin Naylor, at Warwick Univeristy, has found that the average return to a degree has held up well over the past 20 years, but is has become more variable: the university now matters greatly, as does the degree class", my emphasis, the Economist, 18 September 2008.

Affirmative action for Cambridge! Is Cambridge the CUNY of 1970 with "open enrollment" or California's State System today, in which over 40% of freshman need "remedial education" and the average freshman reads at at 10th grade level? What a waste of money.

1 comment:

PrintFaster
said...

Economically speaking colleges are becoming dinosaurs. They cost far too much, both private and public, pay too little in many case for the part time teachers that actually do the work, and deliver far too little.

Where is all the money going? About $60,000 per year including expenses at top private colleges that are little more than clubs for rich kids connections. State universities are costing in excess of $20,000 including expenses.

Who needs it? What do they deliver for 1/4 of a million dollars? A degree in women's studies or political science or ethnic studies? Never mind what the humanities have become. All you get for the money are 4 or more years of drunkenness.

What you will see is a turn to online universities. Children will stay at home and study on the computer and go to work by day.

My sun dropped out of state college in the first year, has a job paying a decent salary. All of his friends are now graduating and none can find a job and are qualified for nothing, even given that many have "business" degrees.

What on earth did they teach them in business? Stay in college and spend more, so you can be unemployed?

Universities and colleges are becoming a grand form of idiocy, where everyone prays to the cargo cult gods for more trinkets to drop out of the sky.

Their day is fast approaching a denouement. In Germany, before one can enter a specialized program at a state university, they are demanding that a job be ready for the graduate. They are rationing slots, hey, because it is the taxpayers' money, and the taxpayers deserve accountability.No more seven years of beer drinking on the public dole, called the university.